Monthly Archives: June 2014

“Small jobs make a big difference to young people.” This was the keynote message delivered by Michael Davies, the Chief Executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) last week. Mr Davies opened the launch of ‘Precarious Futures: Youth Employment in an International Context’ report, hosted in the Science Museum.

I attended with the great and good from industry, parliament and academia to hear the UKCES’s recommendations for addressing youth unemployment today.

The resounding conclusion was clear: any kind of work experience significantly improves the career trajectory of young people today.

And why is this? We heard business leaders across the world describe how their early employment experiences shaped their learning agility, skills and knowledge, fundamentally preparing them for the world of work. This ranged from:

Working in a newsagent (Fiona Kendrick, Chief Executive and Chairman of Nestlé UK and Ireland) honing interpersonal skills and the true meaning of supply and demand

Working in McDonalds (Jill Huntley, Managing Director of Corporate Citizenship, Accenture) developing an appreciation for work ethic and the advancement one earns as a result

Delivering a paper round (Michael Davies, the Chief Executive of the UKCES) building trust with others and the value of team work

Interestingly, the UKCES report reveals that from over 90,000 organisations surveyed, nearly 25% of those who recruit school leavers cite lack of work experience or maturity as a key constraint in this population. This was closely followed by poor attitude or lack of motivation at 18%. By contrast, the technical side looks bright with only 4% citing poor numeracy and literacy skills as a barrier.

From my perspective, these findings imply a largely eager, technically able population of young people, hungry to enter the employment market but with no evidence to showcase their potential.

I left the event feeling that businesses are certainly striving to enable young people to enter their organisation at flexible levels. From the Nestlé Academy, to Google’s 3000 strong Internship programme, the initiatives are there.

My challenge is this: how do we assess young people, who do not have the employment history from which to build their personal business case?

Working with school leaver and graduate recruiters across sectors, such as professional services, FMCG and IT, I hear the same thing. ”We want talented, ambitious, hard working and agile individuals”.

While past experience has traditionally been a predictor of job success, at Capp we know from a decade of research that the study of one’s individual’s strengths, not what you have done, is a truer insight to a young person’s readiness to enter work.

This sits at the core of our recruitment methodology and for me, provides the how in addition to the what we can all do to address youth employment today.

Nestlé Academy Fast Start ProgrammeCase Study

A great example of success in recruiting young people is the industry-leading Nestlé Academy Fast Start Programme, a three year scheme for school leavers. Capp worked in partnership with Nestlé to define the indicators of success and to design an assessment strategy capable of identifying individuals’ potential for success, without relying on candidates’ limited previous work experience. The three main challenges were:

To increase social mobility in the recruitment process – a programme that would enable anyone, regardless of their background the opportunity to ‘learn while you earn’.

To differentiate Fast Start from other school leaver programmes.

To identify candidates with high potential, not based on limited previous work experience.

The success of this scheme won Capp & Nestlé the Best Apprentice/School Leaver Recruitment Strategy Category at the Recruiter Awards 2014. To read about the business outcomes, please see more in our case study here.

For further information on strengths-based assessment, apprenticeships and young careers please contact Claire Marr, Client Services Manager at capp@capp.co or telephone +44 (0)2476 323 363 or Link In with me, Helen Dovey at uk.linkedin.com/in/helendovey

It’s now 5 years since we launched Realise2, our strengths identification and development tool.

Realise2 was one of the key solutions we developed in service of our Capp purpose of Strengthening the World. We had then, and still have now, the desire for everyone in the world to know what their strengths are and to be able to use them every day.

We’re making progress, but there’s still a way to go. At the time of writing, through Realise2 and our other tools based on Realise2, more than 250,000 people around the world have been given a language and a framework to understand and use their strengths.

And this matters.

As the research has consistently shown, when we use our strengths, we are:

More likely to achieve our goals

More likely to be engaged at work

More likely to be happy

More likely to be confident

More likely to be resilient

Less likely to get stressed

Through our work, and your support, there are now at least a quarter of million more people who are experiencing these powerful lessons for themselves.

Here’s to reaching 1,000,000 more people – at least – in the next five years!

On Monday 9 June, I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the inaugural UK STEM Awards at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The Telegraph, in partnership with Babcock International Group hosted an excellent ceremony which celebrated the talent of our young and aspiring scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians (STEM). Launched in March, the initiative invited students to submit their ideas for tackling real-life challenges, on the condition that entries were feasible, original and beneficial to society.

Video presentations summarised the winning ideas in five categories, each sponsored by a prestigious employer in the industry: Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline; Automotive, McLaren Group; Environment, Semta; Construction, Atkins; Defence, BAE Systems. The overall winner was Holly Bishop, studying at Plymouth University, for her concept of a medication reminder bracelet with a light and vibration reminder that is only deactivated by scanning the medication box, thus ensuring the medication is taken. Holly’s prize was a cheque for £25,000, as well as a bespoke mentoring programme from a senior engineer at Babcock (an amazing opportunity for self-development and career planning).

We were also treated to speakers from government, academia and the sponsor businesses; all were unequivocal in their passion for STEM-related studies, reminding us how crucial these subjects are in the design and production of literally everything we interact with on a daily basis.

In summary, the awards ceremony opened up my eyes to three main things:

First, it showed me how important it is to position and celebrate the sciences in schools and colleges. (Maths homework will seem a lot more worthwhile, if you know the benefits it can bring to you and society.)

Second, it confirmed that technology and engineering companies need to continue their efforts in creating roles that inspire current and future STEM-students – otherwise mass migration towards other professions will continue.

Third, I couldn’t help but think how Jobmi can benefit the students and employers that I saw at the awards, by helping to identify young people with a passion for sciences and match them to the right employers. It encourages me to know that the eventual outcome of this, enables our future scientists and engineers to improve the way we all go about our daily lives.

The UK STEM Awards for 2015 is already in planning – I am really looking forward to seeing the new challenges that students will take on, and hope I can attend the awards next year too! To read about the awards, see here.

For further information on how Capp can help your organisation find the right talent, please call Nick Hayter on Tel +44 (0) 2476 323 363 , email nick.hayter@capp.co or Link in with me here.